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I’m writing this captain’s log while hiding in a closet. I don’t have long before my wardens (my children) realize I’ve escaped the room. It has been precisely one year since my last update, and that was not an accident. I’ve got two (count em, TWO) toddlers so I’m hella short on time, patience, patience, sleep, and more patience.

So, without any fanfare, I present: A comprehensive list of my daughter’s personality traits:

1. She is a brute

If Ayanna fails to open a rudimentary sleeve of crackers on the first try, rather than ask for help she will angrily bulldoze her way through the side of the sleeve like a jackal and feast on its innards as if she was starring in a nature program about the eating habits of the North American feral toddler.

2. She is adept at murder

Much like her spirit animal the T-1000, she is a relentless murder machine. She keeps her murder skills sharp by ripping the heads off of her grandmother’s flowers at every turn. I imagine she likes to pretend they are the heads of her enemies and she is starring in her own little episode of Game of Thrones.

3. She thinks sleep is for the weak

After finally passing out from exhaustion, to disturb Ayanna’s slumber is akin to inviting the wrath of an ancient pagan god. LORD HELP ME if I accidentally leave my cell phone in the room with her after she’s down for her nap. I have to sneak into the room all Raiders of the Lost Ark style…sweat dripping off my brow…heart pounding through my shirt…holding my breath until my face turns purple, until I’ve expertly lifted the ancient artifact (an iPhone) from its altar without setting off any booby traps (accidentally kicking an obnoxiously loud toy). Sometimes, I make it out alive. Other times, not so much.

4. She harbors a dark compulsion towards my boobs

Every day, these boobs get a little more grizzled and world-weary in the face than they were yesterday. Somebody call A&E, because it’s time to stage an intervention on my daughter’s behalf. Often while walking the isles at Target, she’s randomly overcome by her lust for boobs. She hastily grabs at my neckline, yanking my shirt down for access. “Nuss!” She demands. “NUSS!” That translates to “nurse” in English. I am NOT trying to violate our local customs on public nudity, so my boobs stay firmly tucked behind my clothing WHERE THE HELL THEY BELONG, and Ayanna swiftly rains her fury down upon my head. I can’t even change my clothes near her without poking her addiction with a stick. She catches one glance of some side-boob and yells “WHY AM I NOT BEING SERVICED BY THOSE RIGHT NOW?” And then I accept my fate.

5. She thinks we are a binary entity

If it were up to her, we would be crudely fused together, her mouth melted to my boob. OR, if she REALLY got her way, we would be sloppily grafted together in such a manner that I would NEVER be able to put her down and she could just ride me around like a donkey.

When they told me I was going to have a daughter, I pictured us mildly like this:

Genial, pleasant, wholesome

In reality, we’re much more like this:

Gruesome, off-putting, terrifying to behold

I CONSTANTLY have to remind her that NO, this is not Thunderdome and FURTHERMORE, we are not Master Blaster. But guess who can’t be reasonable? I went from a sentient being to an automaton who is perpetually being piloted around by a one-year-old.

Okay, it’s been nine weeks since Ayanna broke out of my womb, and every time I look at her precious plump face I think: Lawd Jesus WHY DO YOU KEEP ENTRUSTING ME WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES? Now this is getting dangerous and I thought I made it clear that I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING. Okay, I guess that’s not entirely true anymore, but I still have SO MANY unanswered questions about my mothering style. Such as:

How the hell are we all still ALIVE?

Is it normal that all my son EVER wants to eat is CHEESE?

Do more RESPONSIBLE mothers let toddlers climb their cat towers?

Is my 1-year-old going to grow up to become a unrepentant MURDERER because we watched Scarface during playtime the other day?

I’m sure I’ll get my answers in due time.

My homey Erin just found out that she’s pregnant with her first child, so now she’s bursting with these existential parenting questions, and coming to me with these questions, as if my parenting game was super tight or something. And my first instinct was to just feed her comforting lies like “Every moment of having children never sucks and is JUST WONDERFUL. I am VERY well rested, bro. Yup, I would totally be FULL ON pregnant all over again, because THAT didn’t suck for a second.” Then my second thought was to answer her questions by badly quoting Louis C.K. and tell her “I love my kids more than anything in the world, and I regret every decision that led to them being born.” Which is a funny way of saying “I love my kids, but life was way less terrifying and exhausting before they existed and I’d like to go back to a simpler time when the stakes weren’t so high.” But that’s WAY too bleak and not entirely true, and I didn’t want to scare her. I think it’s clear that I’m probably the last parent anyone should rely on for sage parenting advice. I’ve never been officially diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but I think it’s safe to say that I TOTALLY have one, and it is the crux of all my problems. The only nugget of wisdom I could honestly give was instructing her to take a penetrating stare in the mirror and ask herself if she is a punk bitch, because effective and successful parenting is NOT for punk bitches.

That’s the most reliable takeaway I’ve had since becoming a parent.

And you know what? I don’t think this priceless piece of advice is ever going to steer me wrong for the rest of our lives. I should needlepoint my genius quote and hang it on the mantle (I don’t have a mantle), so I can refer to it whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed.

I explained to her that I can’t remember the last time I was able to use the bathroom without my son ALL UP IN MY FACE. If I ever make the mistake of trying to sit on the throne with the door shut (the way nature intended), he will stand on the other side of the door and bang on it with all of the relentlessness of a severely insane person.

I told her that trying to feed Brandon vegetables is like that scene in Dances With Wolves when Kevin Costner is trying to get the wolf to eat from his hand. But instead of majestic wooden flutes providing the soundtrack, it’s me grumbling “Just eat it eat it eat it just EAT THE FUCKING KALE.” So if you don’t want to get put on a bad parent watchlist because your pediatrician alerted social services that your kid’s iron is low because he chooses to subsist on slices of cheese, you better figure out a way to sneak some damn vegetables in his diet RIGHT QUICK.

I told her that living with a toddler is like that time in college when you were paired with a criminally insane person as your dorm mate, someone whose mood turns on a dime and will pickle your belongings with boogers and vomit if you don’t keep a VIGILANT eye on them.

NOW there’s an infant in the mix, so you can FORGET about sleep, yo. JUST FORGET IT, sleeping is now in your past along with napping, quiet contemplation, and good old-fashioned zoning out. The baby and I are shellacked to each other because I carry her only source of food in my boobs. So it makes disciplining a toddler that much more hilarious for anyone who might be watching us. I have to hastily put the baby down and chase my son around with a tit hanging out of my collar because he keeps trying to open the stove while she’s nursing.

I told her I read somewhere that mother-nature makes your children’s faces really cute by design, so instead of the homicidal urge you feel towards the person who keeps waking you up all night long, your mind performs mental gymnastics to such a level, you’ve tricked yourself into thinking THEY’RE the victim. But I think I totally made that up.

And lastly, I instructed her to start downloading all of her favorite comfort movies to her husband’s xbox NOW, so she can play them ad nauseam when her emotional chips are down. I have watched my favorite scene in Aliens when Vazquez blows herself up more times than I can remember. It always gets me pumped and ready to face the day.

SOOOoooo…,Looks like it’s about to be ROUND 2 up in here.My husband and his unstoppable bionic sperm pulled a fast one on me, once again.After he snuck that first baby in there, I was like OKAY, YA GOT ME. But after all that being pregnant jazz was over and done with, he says to me, “Let’s have Irish twins!”I grabbed him by the lapels and yelled, NOT TODAY, SATAN. I WILL BE DAMNED IF I LET YOU KNOCK ME UP AGAIN, I AM NOT PLAYIN WIT’CHOO. And I marched straight to the doctor’s office and got on the Pill, like expeditiously. I dug a moat around my uterus, and I even decorated the perimeter with the decapitated heads of my enemies just to send a message to his sperm that THIS PLACE IS CURSED AND THEY SHOULD TURN AROUND IMMEDIATELY. But his velociraptor sperms were relentlessly testing my defenses for a weak spot, and once they found it, they raped it for all it was worth, and here I sit, PREGNANT AGAIN.But, let me clarify: it’s not that I didn’t want to have another kid, I do. I just didn’t want to have the second one RIGHT NOW. Because, duuuuuuude, I can’t even fathom the idea of being pregnant ALL OVER AGAIN. Being the incubator for a little human is THE most metal thing one can do with one’s body parts. Forget about tattoos and piercings and whatever the cool kids are doing to look tough. Whenever I see a pregnant lady walking down the street I think,”oh man, she’s hardcore.” Aaaaand I work retail. Walking ’round and ’round for 8 hours every day with my stomach skin stretched tightly over a basketball is kind of EXCRUCIATING.Buuuuuut, today i got a glimpse into the future while watching Brandon frolic in the grass with other babies and toddlers. And I fully admit, it warmed my cold, icy heart. If today was any indication of the joys/horrors/highs/lows/nougat middles of raising TWO kids, we might make it out alive. Or not.Whatever, LETS DO IT.